E-mail can be a hinderance for three reasons:<\/p>\n
One of the e-mail rules that I like to adhere to however, is one that is all too often broken by others. If you find yourself in the CC section of an e-mail, i.e. not in the TO section, this typically means that the e-mail, for you, becomes a FYI…for your information. Your response, unless solicited directly in the e-mail, is not required. Should you choose to offer a response, you should apologise for interjecting from a CC.<\/p>\n
Managing by e-mail is also rather difficult. I know some folks work on a “zero in-box” policy whereby e-mails are converted to tasks (we’re talking about Outlook here) and thus you have a prioritised list of things to do. This works, however I think the problem of information management, and e-mail falls into this category, is a much more difficult arena, and one that is not served by a killer application. Of course, managing all this properly brings with it the need to classify, attribute, associate, infer, etc. links between items, prioritise items, and so on. Whilst work<\/a> is being performed in this area, all we can do today is learn to use e-mail properly.<\/p>\n Don’t let e-mail rule your life – you don’t need to check your e-mail more than three times per day (if somebody tells you that they have just sent you an e-mail that requires your attention, you may of course check your e-mail in between times!)<\/p>\n Do try to keep your immediate in-box cleared down to a reasonable size, I prefer to have less than 20 items “in my face” when my e-mail client(s) start up. Use folders and colour-coding (if available) to help you sort’n’prioritise – not to the point that it overcomes point 3 above. Generally speaking, I’ve noticed that I have very few e-mails whose lifespan is more than 7-10 days – as such, I have a folder “older than 10 days” which can be used as a manual dumping ground, or automated via a rule. Your threshold may vary, but try it, you may be surprised.<\/p>\n You don’t need to keep all trivial e-mails, move them to a “trivial” folder, or better still, delete them.<\/p>\n I will often include myself in the CC list of an e-mail. This allows me to clear out my sent items folder fairly frequently. If your e-mail client offers you “sent item”-specific features, such as delivery\/open tracking, this might not be an option for you (but only if such tracking is required).<\/p>\n In this series:<\/strong> E-mail is great tool. It’s a great communication device. But it’s also a hinderance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,5],"tags":[60,61],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pm","category-project-management","tag-e-mail","tag-email"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1948,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/1948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPM#11 \u2013 Management By Shouting Loudest (MSBL)<\/a>
\nPM#10 \u2013 The truth is best\u2026admit it\u2026<\/a>
\nPM#9 \u2013 Avoid duplication of effort<\/a>
\nPM#8 \u2013 Multi-tasking is evil<\/a>
\nPM#7 \u2013 High workload means lower productivity\u2026<\/a>
\nPM#6 \u2013 You were right and I was wrong<\/a>
\nPM#5 – Whose schedule is it anyway?<\/a>
\nPM#4 – Start it\u2026finish it<\/a>
\nPM#3 – Use e-mail properly<\/a>
\nPM#2 – Focus on the project<\/a>
\nPM#1 – decision making<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"